8) Mariah Kills Cottonmouth – Luke Cage
Speaking of shocking moments, it’s hard not to pick the massive turning point that was this scene in episode seven as the best part of Luke Cage‘s debut season. Mike Coulter’s lead character featured in several great scenes (e.g. the Crispus Attacks siege) and there were several moments of canny social commentary, but overall, you can’t beat a good shocking death.
Cornell ‘Cottonmouth’ Stokes (as played by Mahershala Ali) was shaping up to be a solid season-long big bad. It was pretty unexpected, then, when his cousin – little bad Mariah Dillard – lashed out at him in a fit of anger, sending him tumbling out of a window in episode seven.
It was a move that set the second half of the season off in a completely different direction, leaving the door open for Eric LaRay Harvey’s Diamond to take Cottonmouth’s place as the main antagonist. In retrospect, we might have liked to have seen more from Stokes, but his death nevertheless marks the most exciting moment of the season.